Dark Connections
by Summer Saga
Summary: Hollowpaw is a regular member of ThunderClan, an apprentice in training to become a warrior. Little does she know that her life will be greatly affected by a cat from another clan. First fic! Original clans, all characters mine besides those mentioned.


Mudclaw...yeah. He's not my character. He's Erin Hunter's. So are the Clans technically. But, uh, besides that, I created the characters. Thanks!

---

Hollowpaw strutted into camp, a newly caught squirrel dangling from her jaws. Her heart swelled as the other cats noticed her catch and walked over to congratulate her.

"Wow, Hollowpaw! Your first time out hunting went well, I see," Patchpelt purred.

"A squirrel? You must be fast!" meowed Risingsmoke. "Of course, not as fast as me."

"Maybe you'll turn out to be as good a hunter as Hawktalon," Wrenflight joked, nudging Hawktalon as she said it.

Hollowpaw thanked them each for their praise and stepped to the fresh-kill pile, dropping the squirrel on the top. She wondered who would be the one to enjoy it.

"Hollowpaw?"

Hollowpaw turned, spotting Frozenheart. Frozenheart was Hollowpaw's mentor, and so it was his job to teach her how to hunt and battle. She thought he was pretty good at it too, even though she'd only become an apprentice a few days before.

"Good job today," he mewed. "I'll wake you tomorrow to do some battle training."

Hollowpaw agreed and watched as the tom stalked away. He was different from the other cats; Frozenheart was named for his pure white pelt and pinkish-red eyes. He tended to keep to himself. Hollowpaw guessed this was because most cats found it unnerving to look into his oddly colored eyes. She'd heard before of how, when he was an apprentice, Frozenheart had worked twice as hard to please his mentor, who had died of greencough before Hollowpaw was born. She felt bad for him, and truthfully, Hollowpaw wasn't frightened at all by his eyes. They were just eyes, after all.

Hollowpaw stretched in the sunlight, yawning wide. She deserved a nap after helping feed her clan…

"Hollowpaw! Hollowpaw! Look at _meeee_!"

Hollowpaw looked up, startled, to see Lionkit charging at her. His golden fur shone in the light as the small kit tumbled over, crashing into the apprentice.

"What are you doing?" Hollowpaw's whiskered twitched with amusement.

"Aren't I fast? Softcloud told me I'm as fast as a LeopardClan warrior!"

Softcloud, Lionkit's mother, padded over to the two of them, her other kit, Twigkit, bouncing about her paws. She glanced apologetically at Hollowpaw. "Lionkit! Be more careful!" she scolded.

"It's okay," Hollowpaw told her, than looked back at Lionkit. "Do you want to play a game?"

"Me too!" Twigkit chirped.

"Oh Hollowpaw, you don't have to do that…" mewed Softcloud.

"It's fine. You can go rest."

Hollowpaw would never admit it, but the reason she had offered was because she secretly enjoyed the games the kits played. She was little more than a kit herself, anyway.

Softcloud thanked Hollowpaw numerous times before walking back to the nursery, clearly happy to be able to nap.

"What are we playing?" asked Lionkit.

"Can we play the game when the badgers attack?" Twigkit mewed.

"I have a better idea." Hollowpaw glanced at Batpaw, who was sunning himself on a rock. "Let's pretend that Batpaw is a ShadowClan warrior sleeping on ThunderClan territory. What should we do?"

"We should claw his fur off!" Twigkit howled. Hollowpaw quickly shushed him.

"We have to be quiet, because if the ShadowClan warrior wakes up before we attack him, then we lose the game."

Twigkit and Lionkit both nodded, as serious as if they really were about to chase off an invader.

"Let's go," Hollowpaw whispered, already heading towards the rock. Both kits followed, creeping with their bellies touching the ground.

"On three, we attack. One…two…three!"

Hollowpaw and the kits all leapt at the same time, crashing on top of Batpaw. The tabby apprentice hissed with fright, clawing at the air frantically.

"We've got him!" Lionkit meowed loudly.

"There's no escape now," Hollowpaw added.

"What are you mouse-brains doing?" Batpaw hissed. The kits were still crawling all over him, pretending to hold him down with their tiny paws.

"You're a ShadowClan cat," Twigkit informed him. "We're taking you prisoner for trespassing."

"Oh no, I'm not sure ThunderClan takes prisoners," Hollowpaw meowed.

"Then what should we do with him?" Lionkit looked at Batpaw like he was a huge piece of prey.

"Well," Hollowpaw paused. "Why don't we force him to play another game with us?"

"Games? Since when do apprentices have time for games?"

Hollowpaw jumped as she heard Bluewind's voice. The deputy seemed amused.

"I'm helping Softcloud watch Lionkit and Twigkit while she sleeps."

"Ah. And annoying Batpaw in the process," Bluewind said.

Batpaw huffed. "Now I won't be able to fall back asleep."

"Then again," Bluewind added. "Apprentices don't have much time for napping either."

Batpaw searched for something to say, but found no excuse for his laziness. "Okay, I'll go hunting," he finally said.

"Good. Go with Whisperbreeze, Hawktalon, and Antlerear."

Batpaw went to meet the warriors at the camp entrance, leaving Hollowpaw with Bluewind. The kits had already started playing again, tumbling together by the rock that Batpaw had been sitting on. Hollowpaw looked up at Bluewind expectantly. The warrior pondered for a moment, than turned his blue gaze back to her.

"Would you like to go to the Gathering tomorrow?"

Hollowpaw's pelt prickled. Her first Gathering!

"Yes!" she replied without hesitation.

"Okay. Then you shall. It will be a nice experience for you to see the other clans. You might even meet some new cats." Bluewind flicked his tail tip at her nose before turning away.

Hollowpaw felt as if tiny, sharp claws were pricking at her belly. She could hardly wait to see RiverClan, ShadowClan, and WindClan. She had never seen a cat from another clan, though she had heard stories, not all of them nice.

"Guess what, Blazepaw?" Hollowpaw ran towards her friend, eyes wide. Blazepaw looked up at her with a mouth full of thrush, his ears pricked forward.

"Fwhat?"

"I'm going to the Gathering tomorrow!"

Blazepaw swallowed his food, his throat beginning to rumble with a purr. "Really? Me too!"

"That's great! You've been before, right?"

"Once. I was a little scared to talk to anyone though. Especially those ShadowClan cats. I've heard so many scary stories about them!"

Hollowpaw rolled her eyes at him. "They're only stories to frighten kittens!"

Blazepaw took another bite of thrush, looking slightly offended. "But fey were fo sfary."

The rest of the day flew by, at least for Hollowpaw. All she really did was clean out the elder's den and help Dazzleheart with Shallowpond, who hadn't been feeling very well lately. Then, once night had come, she lay down in her nest and attempted to fall asleep. It was hard though, for the excitement that had risen in her belly refused to go away, and she had to do her best to ignore it and finally doze off.

---

"C'mon Hollowpaw! It's time to go to the Gathering!"

Hollowpaw followed Blazepaw out of the camp entrance, along with the other cats that Bluewind had chosen to come. At the head of the group was Songstar, the ThunderClan leader. She led the cats of her clan down to the lake, where they would meet with the others on the island. As they approached the lake, Hollowpaw noticed the log that was the bridge to the gathering spot. She leaned to Blazepaw and whispered, "How did that get there?"

"I heard from one of the elders, Bitterleaf I think, that that tree was struck down by lightning a long time ago, when the clans first came here from the forest. When the tree fell it killed Mudclaw, a cat of WindClan who was the leader of a rebellion or something. It was StarClan she said that felled that tree; or else we were very lucky to have it kill Mudclaw and make a path to the island."

Hollowpaw wondered what it was like when the cats lived in the forest. How different it must have been! And the cats…what where they like? She fell a little bad for Mudclaw too, that he had been killed that way, crushed by a tree…

"Hollowpaw! It's your turn!"

Hollowpaw returned to the present, startled as Bluewind called out to her. "O-okay." She glanced down at the trunk of the tree that she now stood in front of. She carefully stepped onto the slick surface, digging her claws into the rotting bark as she did. All of the cats around her got quiet as they watched her cross the tree, making sure she would not fall into the deep water below. But, luckily for Hollowpaw, she did not slip and made it safely across to the Gathering place.

"Good job!" purred Blazepaw. "It's easy, right?"

Hollowpaw nodded, though she wasn't really paying her friend much attention. She was looking at all of the cats in front of her, breathing in their varying scents, confused. There were so many, and to Hollowpaw it seemed for a moment that they all belonged to one big clan; it seemed as if all of these cats were linked somehow, there differences forgotten and the boundaries that separated them dissolved. But then she blinked and the image was gone, and Hollowpaw could pick out from what she had heard of them which group of cats was from which clan. The smelly ones were RiverClan; the lean ones were from WindClan; and the cats with the glint in there eyes were from ShadowClan.

"What are you doing? Let's go talk to that group of apprentices over there," meowed Blazepaw. Hollowpaw walked side by side with him to the other younger cats. They were all huddled together, casting nervous glances at the warriors around them.

"Hi, I'm Blazepaw, and this is Hollowpaw," Blazepaw introduced himself and Hollowpaw to the cats, his bushy tail waving behind him.

A few of the apprentices didn't respond, but some of the others appeared rather friendly.

"I'm Cloudpaw," one pretty, white she-cat mewed. "These are my siblings, Echopaw and Shypaw." She waved her tail towards two others, a blue-furred tom with white paws, and a she-cat with the same white fur.

"Are you from RiverClan?" Hollowpaw asked, wrinkling her nose a bit. "Because I can tell by your scent."

She had not meant to be rude, but Echopaw bristled and hissed, "You don't smell like flowers yourself, you know!"

"Oh, she didn't mean it like that," Blazepaw jumped in, sounding apologetic. "Hollowpaw tends to say exactly what she thinks."

Hollowpaw glared at him, wondering if she should be offended or not. She turned to Echopaw and his littermates again. She couldn't bring herself to apologize, but she wanted to be on good terms with these cats. "We're from ThunderClan ourselves," she told them.

Echopaw snorted. "You think we don't know that?" he snapped.

Hollowpaw dug her claws into the ground and returned Echopaw's gaze. "Maybe I do," she replied evenly.

Echopaw's fur stood on end again as he hissed. Shypaw, Cloudpaw, and Blazepaw just watched silently.

"So now you think just because we're from RiverClan that we're mouse-brained?"

"No," said Hollowpaw. "I just think _you're _mouse-brained."

Echopaw yowled and prepared to leap onto Hollowpaw, but he was quieted by surrounding warriors, for the gathering had begun.

---

Hello everyone! I'm Summers. ;3

This was just something random I started a while ago and decided to post.

Sorry if it's boring and all, but it will get better. I didn't want to end it here, but I did anyway...the next part should be up soon, since I'm pretty much done with it. Thanks for reading, and it'd be a big help if you would review!


End file.
